


Like a Soldier Gettin' Over the War

by Sionnan



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Science Husbands, after the war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sionnan/pseuds/Sionnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I miss the war."</p><p>The strangest things you never thought you would miss, once you're back in the world and trying to reintegrate. Like accounting for receipts and somehow getting a single room when you really ought to have two.</p><p>Or: how Hermann and Newt deal with going to their first conference after the Breach is closed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Soldier Gettin' Over the War

"I miss the war."

Sitting in the safety of a room that smelled of old wood, floor polish, and paper, the air seemed too still and too golden. It spilled in silently through the high window with a somber peace, untouched by noise or strife. The click in Newt Geiszler's adam's apple was all the much more audible that way.

The silence continued, uninterrupted, and swept over the small, shaky sigh that came from the other man. There was a small, tense moment, in the face of such a rambling and thoughtful quiet. Hermann Gottlieb, as though a child in the dark once again, reached across the arm of his partner's chair, and slipped a hand into the biologist's knotted fingers.

"So do I," he returned.

\---

Standing at a table in front of probably several hundred colleagues, in a conference in Switzerland, and he tried to ignore the muttering, humming voices, the musty dark of the room, the sense of expectation.

But nothing else. No urgency, no risk.

Dying a little bit in increments, as he felt little pieces of himself slough off and drift down some river indeterminate.

Pulling his laptop out of his bag, making more noise than necessary, trying to recreate that bright explosion of creativity, of need, of brilliance. It sounded inappropriate in the galled half-silence, and Newt bitterly reflected that half of these people had probably been co-opted to work on the Wall project.

He doubted he had a single person in this room who worked in K-Sci during the PPDC days, as he squinted into the gloom, eyes flicking over indistinguishable faces and bodies.

He half expected a klaxon to start blaring in some distant corridor, the harsh bark of a soldier's yell, and almost had a heart attack when the overhead speaker came on, and a soft female voice said something in French.

God, he whined internally, he missed the war.

\---

The room was too big and smelled of fresh linen and the stink of bleach from the pool in the courtyard. Two beds, both full size. Two beds, one room-- a strange and ironic mishap that reminded Newt irrepressibly, joyfully of the communication mix ups and make-do moments in the PPDC. He wasn't sure if the logistics personnel had done that on purpose to save money, or by mistake.

The mattresses were soft, and Newt was pretty positive that the tears that had been stinging his eyes for most of the day, wrapped around his throat like a snake, were going to take that as invitation to come out. Not that having a bed like this was too good-- just that it wasn't right. 

Research and science and soft mattresses don't go together. That isn't the formula. 

But having planted his ass on an edge to test it was a fatal mistake; he was too tired to propel himself off, hands linked together and wringing, dangling between his legs. His decade-long high had come to a strange and uncertain dip, and Newt more than a little suspected it may have been the lack of adrenaline that fueled his brain.

Hermann was bustling about with far more efficiency than he had any right to, maneuvering with distasteful agility in the fairly confined hotel room, putting down bags, pulling out toiletries, arranging notes and occasionally taking or making phone calls.

Who WAS this alien, and what had he done with the crabby and prickly dude Newt had known for years? How had this academic, professional impostor taken his skin? How could he have left Newt alone?

The last thought tumbled into the growing pile of distress, and it seemed to set of a siren wail in Newt's head, the discordances and oddities of this... safe (the word may have had a hint of residual longing, but it was like a memory of childhood-- something unattainable and nostalgic)... life coming to a steam whistle screech. Newt was the last left behind, in their lonely little corner of memories of the war, and now no one was coming back to sit with him and keep him company in the smoldering remains of the past.

Newt was an interloper in this new world-- apart and adrift.

The goddamn bed was too soft. And there were too many fucking towels. Newt could feel the hot wetness of tears on his forearms, as he dug his palms against his brow ridges, even as a self deprecating little huff escaped his mouth. He was almost impressed at this kind of teenage sense of misunderstanding and self pity, and then that broke him a little more, because he realized there was nothing adolescent about this kind of feeling here.

He may have gone on this downward spiral for while, Hermann either unaware of or unwilling to engage in Newt's quiet little breakdown over linens. Newt didn't know; didn't really care if someone were witnessing this. 

Until Herman deftly stripped his bed of the comforter and top sheet, and proceeded to fold them into a long, narrow bundle of cloth as though he were a total fucking lunatic. It was so unexpected and bizarre that it caught Newt off guard, and he raised his head at the snap of cloth in the air, tears still etching down his jaw as he watched.

Hermann fastidiously tucked the blankets into what looked to be a fluffy bedroll, and then unceremoniously plopped the lot onto the floor, the gust of air sending some errant note papers drifting. He snatched the obscenely plump pillow from the head of his designated bed, and tossed it at one end of the sleeping pad, then hitched through the little alley between the beds to snatch at Newt's pillow, and toss it indiscriminately into the middle of the comforter on the floor. 

Then he then seated himself at the paltry little desk as though he had indeed not carried out the hugest fucking deviation in what might have been construed as Hermann's normal nightly routine (strip your bed and make a nest? what?), and boot up his laptop.

There was a profound and befuddled silence on Newt's side.

"Wha-" Newt finally managed to ask, his voice coming out kind of squeaky in consternation and bewilderment.

Hermann finally glanced over his shoulder, and said simply, "Bed's too bloody soft," and returned his attention to his screen.

A long, breathless second passed, and Newt could feel a pretty decent hole wrecked in the wall of despair and panic that had been starting to clamber around his heart. This could work. This felt different, it felt familiar, it felt right. Fuck the rules, make do, make changes, change it around you. "So, uh," he started, feeling his voice a little more husky and softer than normal, but building in optimism. "Motion to join the floor bed movement?"

Hermann for his part had been shuffling through notes and scratching at them with a pencil, but Newt could see he wasn't truly yet distracted and absorbed by his work: a telling little quirk at the side of his mouth gave him away. "Second that motion," he hummed distantly.

It was like the sun came out. For a few brief seconds, that little exchange seemed to have blasted away the feeling of estrangement-- he had his friend, his friend was back, he hadn't left Newt after all-- and he couldn't help the gigantic, probably stupid grin on his face.

So yeah there wasn't a lot of space, but Newt shucked the blankets off his bed, making something more like a pile than that orderly little sleep roll deal Hermann had constructed, and tumbled off the bed. It was uncomfortable, and totally satisfying. The loud sigh of contentment he let off, like a pressure release, actually drew a chuckle out of Hermann.

He perfected his blanket mound with a few folded towels from the bathroom rack, as they somehow didn't have spare pillows. Hermann pointed out they could always call room service for an extra pillow, semi-apologetically eyeing Newt's stolen pillow laying atop his blankets.

"Are you kidding dude? And rack up more expenses on this trip? I dunno about you, but I for one am not prepared to justify my goddamn receipts to the adjutant assistant."

"True," Hermann mused bleakly, and everything felt exactly right. "Does that mean we'll need to pay for our meal at the hotel restaurant out of pocket?" he asked, sounded a little bit affronted, and God that was glorious. In the face of all of this excess, in a room for two of the most brilliant scientists left in the world, the neither of them were 100% sure if the PPDC had okay-ed the fare of their meals.

"Jeez, man. I dunno. Did you get a meal voucher?"

The thought was so ridiculous, almost deplorable-- that they in fact were possibly still being treated like civilian employees, replete with rules and regs and checklists and receipts for expenses-- while in a lofty conference with some of the best minds, in one of the better hotels in the area. The two of them burst into giggles-- totally undignified, but then so was the situation. 

"Oh my God," gasped Newt, almost hiccuping, now wiping away tears of laughter. "Does this mean we'll have to eat vending machine food? I think I got enough change."

"Ugh," sighed Hermann, sounding as though he were now tilted back in his chair, laughter still threaded in his sound. "I don't believe this establishment even houses such things." Which only prompted further rasped, hysterical giggled from the both of them. 

"Screw it," Newt finally acceded, gaining his feet in an uncoordinated flurry of limbs and joints. "I'm gonna go scope out a fast food joint. What do you want?"

Hermann regarded him with a mix of frustration and amusement, and maybe some concern lurking around his eyes, his lips pursed. "Oh, you needn't bother, I'm hardly hungry."

"Dude, one croissant on the plane this morning doesn't count as food, okay. I'll get you something."

This felt good, he could practically hear every cell in his body sing, as though he had stepped back into some kind of internal harmony. Them against the world, the ones with the brains, the guts, the knowledge, and nobody knew how much they had given up, under what kind of constraints they still lived, how different they were from the rest of that complacent bunch.

But that was the important part: THEY, not HIM.

Newt found a little Vietnamese pho shop after taking quite a few side streets away from the hotel, emerging into some bizarre, bustling little streetside of neon accented nightlife, small shop doors glistening down the street, young folks trailing from pubs and restaurants.

He came to the cleanness of the hotel smelling of frying grease, onions, and bone meal, grinning the front desk attendant as he strode past with his plastic bag marked with Vietnamese.

Hermann cocked at eyebrow at him when he fumbled into the room, somehow navigating his keycard, the door handle, and his food bag with only two hands. Of course, he did a little bit of yelling at Hermann for not getting up and helping him, jesus dude, who only rolled his eyes.

They sat on their beds, facing each other across steaming bowls of noodles and side dishes of meat. They gossiped about old colleagues that they spotted in the crowds, lamented over the mental dullness that seemed to pervade the whole affair, and bickered over the root word for a noodle dish as they swiped wooden chopsticks together to smooth the splinters.

Newt sadly remarked on his oversight of booze, and with an uncharacteristic jump, Hermann abandoned chewing the rest of the meat from a bone, dropping the container on the lamp table, to root in his garment bag. He returned with a wry, conspiratorial smile, and a large hip flask that when unscrewed smelled incredibly of slivovitz.

Their glut slowed as the food disappeared, their conversation meandering into theorems and proofs. There was no urgency, but for once it felt good. Hermann disappeared into the bathroom with his toiletry kit, and Newt fell into his pile of blankets, rooting and squirming until he had made himself comfortable against the carpet.

He fell asleep to the sound of Hermann getting ready for bed, the clink of his belt as he disrobed, the hush of the shower as he bathed. He only half awoke to the smell of shampoo and soap and moisture, as Herman stepped past him, bare feet whispering on the carpet. He stayed half awake, waiting as Hermann lowered himself to the ground, grunting as he worked his hip and knee. Finally, after some rustling of blankets, he could smell Hermann's wet hair half a foot from his face, and caught the small sigh.

Newt smiled, feeling sleep sealing his lids again. But this was important, it had to be said: "G'night, Hermann."

Then, softly, with a smile in his voice, Hermann replied, "Goodnight, Newton."

**Author's Note:**

> Assuming here that the PPDC would probably have footed the bill for them to go to a conference at least once before they got out into the rest of the world.
> 
> Title is from a Johnny Cash song, "Like a Soldier".


End file.
